Friday, September 02, 2005

Toll Frustrations

This area of Central Florida has several toll roads. For convenience, I signed up for SunPass, which lets me use reserved lanes and automatically pay the toll.

However, it isn't that smooth. A few weeks ago an article ran in the paper about various billing errors, many of which are due to equipment glitches. I read the article with interest, because I know the transponder doesn't always register when I drive through.

Yesterday, I got a notice that a vehicle registered to me was found to have more than three violations in the past thirty days. Great, now I'm in this situation! I called up SunPass and after speaking to a rep, he said the violation would be dismissed. And also, I should send my transponder into a service center for replacement.

I however, have no more faith in the service. The discount and convenience of using the SunPass are completely outweighed by the hassle of calling around to clear up the threat of tickets and fines. Besides, I only drive on a toll road once or twice a week - I'm just not using it that much. So I plan to cancel my account and get a refund of my prepaid account.